The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

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Knight
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The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by Knight »

The Shelby Report reports Greensboro, North Carolina-based specialty gourmet grocer The Fresh Market announced Rick Anicetti has resigned as Chief Executive Officer.

I guess The Fresh Market's revamp from a specialty gourmet grocer to include everyday grocery items and decrease focus away from its service departments hit a snag. During Anicetti's tenure, The Fresh Market has closed many stores and exited many markets.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by storewanderer »

I went into a few Florida Fresh Markets in April around Miami and Orlando. The common trend: business was pretty slow. Perimeters looked good, quality was still there, etc. Service was just okay, at best, and simply indifferent, at worst. The addition of more "everyday" items to center store seemed to be more talk that actual action, but it did seem to squeeze things a little tighter on what were already very tight sets. While I was there, they were doing a Fresh Market Customer Appreciation or Anniversary or something sampling event. The samplings were for 2-3 hours on each weekend day for a month, or something. The samples were rodent sized portions; for instance, a single blackberry sample in a little clear 1 ounce cup? There has to be a better way...

Still, I like these stores and some of their products. The total lack of any effort at regional or localized marketing continues to perplex me (those stores in FL were merchandised just like the ones that closed in CA, or like the one I first got to visit in Maryland).

Unfortunately I think this chain will continue to struggle.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by Knight »

The Fresh Market is at a point it needs to update its image and review its footprint. Shifting away from a specialty gourmet grocer by including everyday grocery items and health and beauty products and overextending itself across the United States are now failed directions.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by pseudo3d »

Fresh Market is proof positive that the c. 2008-2009 talk of "smaller grocery stores are the future" is just smoke and mirrors. While the industry is not going bigger and bigger and for the most part has largely eased off anything surpassing 70k square feet (with the exception of a few chains/formats), the only chains that have succeeded with small formats has been Trader Joe's and Aldi. Fresh & Easy failed, The Fresh Market is failing, WFM got weakened to the point where it was on the sale block (and even it started growing bigger), and Sprouts I'm sure of...if they're fueling themselves with adding new stores then they're going to be in for a rude awakening pretty quickly.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by mbz321 »

pseudo3d wrote:Fresh Market is proof positive that the c. 2008-2009 talk of "smaller grocery stores are the future" is just smoke and mirrors. While the industry is not going bigger and bigger and for the most part has largely eased off anything surpassing 70k square feet (with the exception of a few chains/formats), the only chains that have succeeded with small formats has been Trader Joe's and Aldi. Fresh & Easy failed, The Fresh Market is failing, WFM got weakened to the point where it was on the sale block (and even it started growing bigger), and Sprouts I'm sure of...if they're fueling themselves with adding new stores then they're going to be in for a rude awakening pretty quickly.
I don't think it has anything to do with store size, but more like TFM is ridiculously, insanely expensive. I know they are trying to target a higher end clientele', but that combined with a no real selection of anything means it's only useful to stop in every now and then for a few 'foodie' items you can't get anywhere else vs. a place that draw people to do routine shopping at.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by pseudo3d »

mbz321 wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:Fresh Market is proof positive that the c. 2008-2009 talk of "smaller grocery stores are the future" is just smoke and mirrors. While the industry is not going bigger and bigger and for the most part has largely eased off anything surpassing 70k square feet (with the exception of a few chains/formats), the only chains that have succeeded with small formats has been Trader Joe's and Aldi. Fresh & Easy failed, The Fresh Market is failing, WFM got weakened to the point where it was on the sale block (and even it started growing bigger), and Sprouts I'm sure of...if they're fueling themselves with adding new stores then they're going to be in for a rude awakening pretty quickly.
I don't think it has anything to do with store size, but more like TFM is ridiculously, insanely expensive. I know they are trying to target a higher end clientele', but that combined with a no real selection of anything means it's only useful to stop in every now and then for a few 'foodie' items you can't get anywhere else vs. a place that draw people to do routine shopping at.
I would be remiss in not mentioning that Fresh & Easy also had some major issues with price and merchandising, but all of them were "false prophets" in the industry. In recent years, Meijer attempted smaller stores in Chicago, some of these have since closed with none in the pipeline; SuperValu tried a new smaller store concept using the Jewel name, that failed; Publix dragged its feet on "small" stores for years (the 20k square feet is supposed to open in Gainesville but it's hardly a new trend, likewise for a tiny H-E-B in San Antonio); Safeway tried "The Market" with two stores and abandoned the format.

Point being that the "small format" stores weren't nearly the industry game-changer they were thought to be, and we're starting to see the slow collapse of that in action.
Last edited by pseudo3d on June 25th, 2017, 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Fresh Market: Rick Anicetti, Chief Executive Officer, resigns

Post by storewanderer »

The other problem I have seen with The Fresh Market is while they try to be high end, their employees are not high end in their appearance or behavior, generally speaking. The first one they opened in California in Roseville did great with its employees. Every other Fresh Market I've ever been to, service has been just okay to below average depending on the location. Most recent experience was one visit in Florida where the cashier threw my sourdough roll (they have wonderful sourdough) into the plastic bag upside down so it was falling out of the bakery bag as I pulled it out. When you have high prices there is no room for error, things have to be perfect.
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